Why are relationships within family becoming highly commercial these days?
A brother lives in the USA. When he comes to India after a full 24 months, his children aged 10 and 7 do not even wish their cousins or talk frankly with their grandparents on either side. This happened in the year 1998 and the parents of the children, in spite of their best efforts, failed to make their children establish any meaningful relationship based on love and affection with their relations. Since I knew the family so intimately, I was a witness to what happened.Cut to 2021. Forget those settled abroad. Relationships are now based on Facebook and what's up, for the majority of Indians. People now talking of sending invites to any family function through what's up, even to their own brothers and sisters on either side, even when they live in towns or cities just one hundred kilometers away. No wonder, the bonding between children is as cold as ever. In the case of a single child, it is even worse.
Why does this happen with alarming regularity? Why is everything based on commercial relationships or calculations? Yes. There are still families of brothers and sisters who get together so often and celebrate family functions, religious activities, and so on. However, one is afraid that times are changing. We might soon face a situation where cousins may not meet each other for decades and even when they do, fail to jell.
Members may share their views on whatever it takes to rectify the situation.